The hiring is the easy part. Whether this works comes down to what you do in the first two months, and almost none of it is complicated — it is just different from managing someone sitting across the room.

Here is what separates the arrangements that last years from the ones that quietly end at month three.

Record, do not explain

The single highest-return thing you can do is screen-record yourself doing the tasks you are handing over. Not a polished training course — just five minutes of you raising an invoice, narrating what you are doing and why.

A live call teaches something once. A recording teaches it every time they need it, without them having to ask you again and without the slight awkwardness of a new person asking the same question twice.

Businesses that spend the first fortnight building a small library of these videos report a completely different experience from those that rely on calls. It feels slow for two weeks and pays back for years.

Fix a daily overlap and protect it

India is UTC+5:30 — four and a half hours ahead of the UK in summer, five and a half in winter. A standard Indian working day already overlaps most of yours.

What matters is having a fixed point in it. Twenty minutes at the same time every day, ideally near the start of your day and the middle of theirs. It removes almost all the friction people blame on the time difference.

Once things are running well, this can drop to a couple of times a week. Do not skip it in month one.

Start narrow, widen fast

Give a new hire two or three well-defined tasks to own completely in week one. Not a job description — actual tasks, with a clear definition of done.

Then add scope as the work comes back right. The instinct to hand over everything at once, so they “have enough to do”, reliably backfires: you get five things done at seventy per cent instead of two done properly.

Most of our clients find their first India hire has absorbed substantially more than the original role within six months, simply because they became the person with capacity to pick things up.

Be specific in feedback, early

This is the one cultural difference worth naming directly. In many Indian workplaces the hierarchy is more formal than a UK small business, and a new employee may be reluctant to push back, say a task is unclear, or tell you they disagree.

That is not passivity. It is a reasonable read of what most employers want, and it will fade once they learn it is not what you want.

You accelerate it by being explicit. Say plainly, in week one, that you want to be told when something is unclear and that flagging a problem early is what you consider good work. Then respond well the first time they do it. That single interaction sets the tone for the whole relationship.

Give feedback specifically and early, too. “Can you make the subject line more direct next time, like this” is useful. Three weeks of silence followed by “this is not quite working” is not.

Include them properly

The clearest predictor of whether one of these hires stays is whether they were treated as part of the team or as an outsourced resource.

Introduce them to everyone by name and role. Put them in the same channels. Give them the same context about what the business is trying to do this quarter. Invite them to the all-hands even if the time is awkward. Mention their work when it goes well, in front of other people.

A hire nobody has been introduced to gets no work sent their way, then gets judged for not being busy.

Know their holidays

India has a lot of public holidays, and they vary by state. Diwali is the significant one — a multi-day festival where you should expect people to be off and plan around it, the way you would plan around Christmas.

Ask early in the relationship which holidays they observe, put them in a shared calendar, and do not schedule anything critical across them.

Talk about pay before they have to ask

Salary expectations rise in the Indian market, and good people get approached. If someone is doing well, review their pay proactively at six or twelve months rather than waiting for a resignation to prompt it.

The increase that keeps a good hire is usually small in sterling terms and significant to them. It is the cheapest retention you will ever buy.

The mistakes that end these arrangements

  • Treating them as a machine. No context, no feedback, task lists thrown over a wall.
  • Skipping onboarding because the person seemed capable at interview.
  • Never speaking except when something is wrong.
  • Assuming silence means agreement. Ask directly.
  • Forgetting they have a career. People stay where they are learning something.

None of this is specific to India, really. It is just ordinary good management, applied to someone you will probably never share a room with — which means the things that happen incidentally in an office have to happen deliberately instead.

Thinking about your first India hire? Book a 15-minute call → or read how the process works.